• On June 29, 1978, Vietnam joined the Soviet-dominated economic group Comecon. Vietnam was described as "the reliable outpost of socialism in Southeast Asia.
• Throughout that summer, Moscow airlifted huge quantities of weapons to Vietnam, the number of Soviet military "advisers" reached 4,000, and the Soviet Union acquired naval facilities in Vietnam.
• In November, Le Duan and Pham Van Dong (the 2 top Vietnamese leaders) visited Moscow and signed a "Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation" which included military provisions.
• That same month, Moscow convened a summit of the Warsaw Pact military alliance and forced its members (except Romania) to increase their military spending and called for "joint support" of Vietnamese aggression.
• On December 3, the Vietnamese put together a puppet "front" of Karnpuchean traitors led by Heng Samrin to serve as a flimsy cover for their aggression.
• On December 25, the Vietnamese began their full-scale war of aggression. (Two days earlier, Vietnamese agents had assassinated Dr. Malcolm Caldwell, one of Kampuchea's most important Western friends).
• On January 7, 1979, the Vietnamese aggressors occupied the capital, Phnom Penh, and the long struggle of the Kampuchean people for freedom entered a new stage.

MOSCOW'S AIMS

The Soviet-Vietnamese aggression has significance beyond the ·traditional Vietnamese ambition of regional domi nation through an "Indochina.Federation"- it is an important element in the global strategy of the Soviet social imperialists for world hegemony (domination). Indeed, the gl.obal and regional hegemonists are "natural allies" as the USSR itself proclaims! Indochina lies between the Indian and Pacific Oceans - with a base there the Soviets could send their fleet through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean and onto their base in the Red Sea, South Yemen, and the Horn of Africa. Moscow would also be in a better posi tion to threaten the countries of the South Pacific and would be able to control vital oil supply lines to Western Europe, Japan and the USA.

Whilst Europe is the focal point of the struggle for world domination between the United States and the Soviet Union, the 2 sides are currently in a position of stalemate with vast armies standing face to face. As the superpower on the offensive, the Soviet Union is engaged in a flanking move to surround Western Europe, seize sources of raw materials vital to the West and gain control of major sea routes linking Europe and the United States, and linking these two with Africa and Asia. This would leave Western Europe isolated and an easy prey for aggressors. Moscow's acts of aggression and interference in Asia and regions bordering it affect more and more countries and peoples:

• Moscow plotted the assassination of the presidents of North and South Yemen and signed a military treaty with its puppets in the South.
• Supported the fascist regime in Ethiopia with VIETNAM of aggression against the Eritrean patriots.
• Made its Yemeni and Ethiopian puppets sign a military treaty among themselves and with East Germany.
• Installed another puppet regime in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union is directing and directly involved in the war against the Muslim rebels.
• Moscow has been engaged in subversive activities against Iran and Pakistan, seeking in particular to exploit the complex national problems of these Third World countries. Recently, it has been particularly active in Iranian Kurdistan.
• It has tried to use the anger of the Arab peoples over the Camp David Accords to create a pro-Soviet bloc in the Middle East through the "rejectionist front".
• It has intensified its bullying of Japan and its occupation of Japan's four northern islands.

VIETNAM - A BASE FOR AGGRESSION

In addition to their genocidal war in Kampuchea, the Vietnamese authorities have brought Laos under their iron heel, carried out provocations on the southern border of socialist China - with the aim of weakening its defenses and diverting it from the task of modernization necessary to consolidate China as a firm bastion of world revolution and resistance to aggression - and are daily making more blatant threats against Thailand and violating its sovereignty.

Consequently, the governments and peoples of the Southeast Asian countries have become more aware of the threat of Vietnamese aggression and have taken measures to deal with it. The revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia have also made appropriate political adjustments. Thus, the critical situation in today's Asia-Pacific region has been caused by the ganging up of the regional and global expansionist powers. Vietnam would not dare to be so belligerent if it did not have 100% Soviet backing, and the Soviet Union would not have been able to cause so much trouble if it did not have Vietnam's support for its strategy of setting Asians against Asians - the old "Nixon Doctrine" - which allowed it to greatly accelerate its pace of aggression.

Vietnam is now the source of war in Southeast Asia and the Kremlin's main base for aggression throughout the continent.

SOVIET EXPANSIONISTS WILL BE DEFEATED

The Soviet revisionists consider it a great gain that they have the Vietnamese authorities as their puppets for aggression in Asia, but the genocidal activities of the Vietnamese - far surpassing even those of the Nazis - have opened the eyes of people all over the world to the nature of the threat they face. This has greatly strengthened the international united front against superpower hegemonism, as evidenced by the overwhelming support given to the just demands of the Democratic Kampuchean Government in the United Nations General Assembly and the success of the Stockholm International Conference against Vietnamese aggression and for Kampuchean national independence.

The social imperialists are dreaming if they think that they can rule the whole world with their weapons and a handful of hatchet men. Even if they succeed in one or two places, the social imperialists can never turn back the wheel of history. As Mr. Jan Myrdal pointed out in his keynote speech at the Stockholm Conference, "the people are stronger than the criminal politicans who are trying to wage wars of aggression against us. Even the most ferocious beasts can be made to let go of their prey by those with whom they have a military treaty and who have directed the war".

1979